Our own Iacopo Iacopini (QMUL and the Alan Turing Institute) and Vito Latora (QMUL), researchers from the Complex Systems & Networks group have developed a mathematical model for the emergence of innovations.

A new work by our own Prof. Christian Beck, in collaboration with colleagues from other institutions in Germany and Japan, has recently been published inNature Energy. In this contribution the researchers study the time series fluctuations in power grids which result from several factors including dynamically changing demands, energy trading or an increasing share of renewable power feed-in.

We are delighted that the fourth meeting within the EPSRC Early Career Forum in Mathematical Sciences was held at QMUL on 12 December 2017, with external contributions by Professor Jonathan Pitts (QMUL and Director of Actual Experience Ltd), and Professor Graham Niblo (University of Southampton and Chair of Maths SAT).

Congratulations to Oscar Bandtlow, Wolfram Just, Rainer Klages, Vito Latora, Silvia Liverani, Anna Maltsev, Arick Shao, Sasha Sodin and Juan Valiente-Kroon on their recent grant successes! The total volume of research funding awarded to staff in the School of Mathematical Sciences since August 2014 is £7.5m.

The 29th conference on Formal Power Series and Algebraic Combinatorics (FPSAC) took place from Sunday 9 July to Thursday 13 July. The conference was organised by the School of Mathematical Sciences (SMS) in partnership with the Clay Mathematics Institute and supported by funding from the National Science Foundation. More than 200 mathematicians from around the world attended the conference, many of them PhD students to whom we were able to offer generous financial support.

We are pleased to announce that following our submission in November, the School was recently awarded an Athena SWAN Bronze Renewal award until November 2020. Since our original Bronze Award in 2013, we have made significant progress in embedding equality and diversity practices across School activities.